“Come on. It’s time for practice on the vert,” I told Kristi, Mark and Toby.

“Yeah. The invitations are coming up and we need to practice,” Mark agreed.

“We got our blades and we’re off!” Kristi yelled. We roller-bladed over to the vert which was only a few blocks from school.

Let me explain this. My name is Eric and Kristi, Mark and Toby are my best friends. We’re all sixteen and love to blade. So we were more than happy when we were invited to the Championship. But we skated for the fun of it, not because of the money. After school everyday for a few hours, we headed over to vert and street to skate.

Anyways, we got there in about five minutes. The vert was occupied so we sat to wait. but we couldn’t help notice something. The person who was occuping the vert was doing 360-degree, flips, twirls and jumps all over the vert.

“Wow, she’s good,” Kristi awed, amazed. This girl was awesome. My eyes were fixed on her when a familiar face came into view. That of Brad. (AN: Have you noticed my bad guys always had ‘B’ names in elementary school?) Brad was the jerkiest guy around. I guess you could say he was our enemy. (AN: Yes, I guess you could.) He was on team Bladzers. And of course, he skated for money. He called out something that must have been the girl’s name because she stopped and went over to Brad.

“Listen really hard and you can kinda hear them talk,” Toby whispered. I tried it and sure enough I could kidn of hear them.

“Look Jessica*. (AN: Once again, used my own name in a story.) I’ll give you another change. If you were my girlfriend you would be the most popular girl at school with the most popular boy,” Brad said trying to grab her hand.

“And I’ll tell you my answer one more time. No! No! and No!” she yelled at him.

“I’ll give you some time to think about it,” he told her. I had never known Brad to have a crush on a girl. Jessica started heading over to us. Now I knew why Brad wanted to go out with her. I know this may sound corny, but she was beautiful. She had brownish-gold hair that went to her shoulders. She had freckles and from what I could see hazel eyes. (AN: At least I didn’t entirely use my own physical traits for the character.)

“Verts all yours,” she told us, the bladed away.

“That was weird,” Mark said.

“I know. but did you see that girl Jessica?” I asked as we all got up and headed toward the vert.

“Tomorrow must be her first day at school. I haven’t seen her around,” said Kristi. (AN: Then how does Brad know her to have a crush on her?)

“Anyways. . .” Toby said which was a sign to wake-up. And so practice began. We started by just doing jumps. That led to twirls and finally we were going all out. ‘This is what skating is about,’ I thought. The wing billowing my shirt, my hair slapping my face. I couldn’t help but smile. We practice fora bout three hours. Then I realized it was six-fifteen. Time for dinner. So I said good-bye and raced home.

“Where have you been young man?” my dad roared the instant I walked through the door.

“Let me guess, rollerblading,” my little sister Anna said, walking up from behind me.

“Yep,” I said as I headed upstairs to my room.

“Hurry! I’m putting dinner on the table!” my mom yelled from somewhere in the kitchen. I took my blades off in my room even though I’m not suppose to wear them in the house. I threw on new clothes since my old ones were all sweaty. By the time I got downstairs everyone was at the table. Everyone being mom, dad, me and my twin little sisters Anna and Hanna. (AN: Gag!)

For dinner was hot dogs, potato salad, jello and chips. Not a fancy dinner but exactly what my hungry taste buds wanted. I was starved and easily gobbled up two hot dogs. That added with all the sides filled me up so I headed to my bathroom for a shower. Afer my shower it was eight o’clock and time for homework. That was easy enough and I finished in about thirty minutes. All I had to do was some science papers. I grabbed the nearest book which was #5 Animorphs The Capture by K.A. Applegate. So I read until I dozed off.

CHAPTER TWO Jessica

“Anyone here? I’m home!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. Let me stop here real fast and explain myself. My name is Jessica. But names don’t tell you much. I’m sixteen and the oldest of nine children. Here’s a list: me -16, Jake -15, Rachel -13, Fi -12, Alyssa -9, Justin -8, Tyler -7, Dil -6, Jasmine -3. (AN: Their poor parents.) You think that’s bad, the only adult in the hosue is my dad. My mom died two years ago with heart & lung cancer. (AN: Or from popping out eight babies in a row.) So we moved here, Rockport Texas, from San Fransisco, California. We bought a farm and animals too, so we’re not poor. But we all work non-stop from 6:00am - 9:00 pm. So I was tired.

Luckily, it was my day off. So all I had to do was cook dinner and feed the animals which isn’t too hard. It was only five o’clock. So I had forty-five minutes until I had to start dinner. I had only lived in this house for about two weeks so I didn’t know much about where we lived but I did know one thing. The day that we moved in I had gone exploring and found a hollowed out tree with an entrance at the base of the trunk. That’s where I was going. Also, I had started building a tree house in the same tree. At the top of the trunk was a hole that led right into the tree house. Over the last few days I had carried little odds and ends to my tree house. I decided I would spend my firty-five minutes working on my tree house.

But first I had to get there. So I grabbed Thunderbucket and rode. (AN: Thunderbucket!! hahaha!)

“Okey . . .” I said aloud to no one in peticular. Where to start was always a tough decision. I climbed up the dark, hollow trunk and into the tree house. I would have to remember to put my flashlight at the bottom of the trunk when I left. I looked around. The walls, ceiling and floor were finished. I had two bookshelves with 6 shelves each. Also already made were two tables and eight chairs. The windows were done. I had blankets, pillows and other homelike things. Only one thing left to do. A door. It would be a trap door covering the hole in the floor.

So I spent my now 25 minutes (ten to get here and ten to get back) cutting, nailing, screwing and hinging. Twenty-five minutes went by like twenty-five seconds. I got all of the cutting done and most of the nailing.

“Come on boy,” I patted Thunderbucket on the flank, then hopped onto his back. As I rode I watched the scenery flash by like a dream. I badly missed my homeland (AN: Uh . . .San Francisco?) where I lived for fourteen years of my life. One reason we had bought all these animals because in Madagascar my whole family (but mostly me) had gotten attached to animals. (AN: Oh! I forgot my whole Madagascar phase. So I guess that’s her homeland.) Yes, I was born and raised in Madagascar. Raising animals was our life.

The other horses in the barn snorted as I slipped Thunderbuckets saddle and bridle off. I hung them on the pegs and jogged to my house. Jake was the only one not in the dining room. But he found his way from the back of the house as soon as I uncovered the food. Dad said a quick blessing then finished his meal quietly. Since Mom had died he rarely left the house and didn’t talk much. I knew how he felt. But we had a family to raise and if he didn’t want to accept that responsibility then I told myself, I would.

I just picked at my meal. Alyssa blabbed on about some friends she had made down the road. Fi (AN: That would be Fi from that Disney show “So Weird”) was th eonly one who really noticed that I wasn’t eating. But that wasn’t unusual. I didn’t eat much. Being around my Dad always made me depressed. He never smiled. It was Rachel’s night to do dishes so I went outside where I burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Del asked. (AN: Del? Did Dil undergo a sex change?) She sat on the grass beside me.

“Brad asked me out again,” I laughed. Me and Del always talked about everything even though she was 10 years younger than me.

Written: Age 11
(AN: Unfortunately, this story was also never finished. Very few stories have ever been finished. And in most cases, I’m sure mankind thanks me for that.)

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